20081225

It may piss off the Christians to hear this, but Christmas doesn’t have much to do with anything in the Bible. In fact, take away the nativity scene and the rest of the holiday comes from pretty much every European tradition except the Christian one. The Romans were exchanging gifts during Saturnalia long before the three wise men showed up at Jesus’ house (yes, house – we’ll get to that in a bit), and the only thing that the Bible has to say about Christmas trees is to condemn them.

As far as the birth of Christ thing, of the four books of the Bible that discuss the life of Jesus – the Gospels – only two of them talk about his birth. And, given the Bible’s track record so far, it should not surprise you to learn that even those two books disagree with each other.

This starts making sense when you accept the most important fact about Jesus: he did not exist. Jesus was merely the cooption of pagan resurrection god myths by a particular Jewish sect in search of their long-awaited messiah. This is fairly obvious when you compare the four Gospels. They mostly agree on the gist of things, but they disagree on the details, which is precisely what you would expect from oral traditions. Furthermore, when you compare that gist to other Mediterranean and Near Eastern religious traditions, you find that they track fairly well: Greek sects had their resurrection gods; Egyptian sects had their resurrection gods; and so forth. Everything Jesus did, some other god had done before him.

As for the date of Christmas – December 25th – well, that’s not Christian in origin either. In fact, the modern holiday season, whether represented by Christmas, Hanukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, or some other holiday, is merely the modern version of the ancient celebration of the winter solstice – that time of year when the days stop getting shorter and start getting longer again. The Romans even celebrated the winter solstice on the same day that Christians would later celebrate Christmas, December 25th. A popular myth is that early Christians intentionally set the date of their holiday around the time of the Roman Saturnalia festival, so as to partake in the festivities without drawing attention to themselves. However, Christianity was little more than a local cult at that time, and it is unlikely that anything like Christmas had begun to develop so early in the religion’s existence.

The first hard evidence we have of the celebration of Christmas on December 25th does not occur until the year 354CE. It just so happens that that date was already in use by pagan Romans as the birth of Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun”. Jesus has always had a sun god aspect, which is also in keeping with the other religions from which he is liberally borrowed, and which was especially obvious in early portrayals of him. As the Roman Empire transitioned from the Greco-Roman to the Christian religion, dies natalis Solis Invicti simply became Christmas, because the god celebrated was one and the same. And both gods, in this context, were simply symbolic representations of the solstice.

It has become something of a tradition that, around this time every year, we have to listen to the right-wing bitch and moan about the supposed “war on Christmas”. To any observer, however, Christmas is in no danger of disappearing. The truth is that Christmas has always been a secular holiday with religious overtones that change depending on the particular religious tradition of its observers. It is also true that the most rabidly religious groups are not the most fervent in their celebrations of Christmas, but in their attempts to suppress and ban them.

There is no “war on Christmas”. However, there is a right-wing fundamentalist Christian “war” on every other holiday that might be celebrated this time of year. What concerns the right-wing is not that their holiday might be taken away somehow, but that someone somewhere might not believe and practice in the same fashion that they do. The right-wing is threatened by any reminder that they do not possess undisputed cultural hegemony. Fundamentalist Christianity, with its inherent paranoia and delusions of persecution, makes the perfect foundation for a homegrown American proto-fascist movement, and that is precisely what it has become over the last few decades. Christmas, being an emotionally-charged topic among its followers, has been co-opted into a symbol of their supposed persecution at the hands of domestic enemies.

Also present is the right-wing embrace of anti-intellectualism, which has reached such an extent that the right-wing now seems proud of its ignorance. Its members are loathe to learn about the world, because, in learning, they might discover something that would make them question their beliefs; since they already know that they are right – because they believe they are right – then that new learning must be wrong, and, in trying to divert them off the “straight and narrow path” of their own egoism, intrinsically evil. Thus, they divide the world into neat boxes, but only two: fundamentalist Christian, and everything else. It is this anti-intellectualism, this fear of being wrong, that causes them to miss and dismiss the long history of the winter solstice as the ultimate multi-cultural celebration.

And it is this anti-intellectualism which leads them never to know that what they purport to celebrate as the birth of Jesus is not even true Biblically, for that fear of learning extends even to their own holy book, which they dare not actually read because they might be wrong.

As I mentioned above, only two of the four Gospels even mention the birth of Jesus. Those are Matthew and Luke, and they disagree with each other. The nativity scene, and the well-known story of Jesus’ birth, is a mishmash of both, taking the gaudiest bits of one and mixing it with the gaudiest bits of the other.

For example, the three wise men only appear in Matthew. Here they visit Jesus at his parents’ house in Bethlehem. The manger only appears in Luke, where Joseph and Mary must travel to Bethlehem for the purposes of census (itself a dubious idea) and find all the inns to be full. Unfortunately, the three wise men are absent from Luke’s version. Thus, the three wise men come from Matthew, and the manger comes from Luke, with the discrepancies conveniently forgotten.

The shepherds only appear in Luke, where they are visited by the angel while guarding their flocks. This bit is also incorporated into the standard nativity story. However, shepherds don’t guard their flocks in the field in the middle of winter, not even in the Near East (where it is not perpetually hot). In other words, according to the Bible itself, Jesus could not have been born on December 25th. Given his role as a resurrection god, it is probable that he was initially identified with the vernal equinox, which marks the approach of spring; only when the myth incorporated the solar aspect was his birthday changed to the winter solstice.

Herod and his slaughter of the first-borns only appears in Matthew, and is a wild fiction. The contemporaneous Roman historian Josephus produced a detailed biography of Herod that makes no mention of such an event, nor does any other history produced at the time (and such an event would have drawn notice). Meanwhile, in Luke only, Joseph and Mary travel to the temple in Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth to offer thanks to Yahweh for his birth, but this is missing from the standard tale, which ends in a strange anticlimax (Jesus is born, and that’s that until Easter).

As I mentioned above, these disparate tales make sense if they are considered to be different versions of the same oral tradition. The other two Gospels, Mark and John, begin with Jesus already having started his ministry. In all versions of the myth, the death and resurrection is the important part (though, again, they differ on the details), but Matthew and Luke seek to emphasize the deific nature of Jesus, as well as his Hebrew lineage (this places him within the context of messianic Judaism).

The obvious question here is why a story sprang up that incorporated bits and pieces from each of two different versions of the same tale, without anyone noticing the discrepancies. I mean, couldn’t they read? Well, as it turns out, no, they couldn’t. Not only was most of the population of Europe illiterate until well into the modern age, but the Catholic Church also did its utmost to maintain strict control over how the religion was presented to its followers. Only members of the church were permitted to “interpret scripture”, and, even then, they had to interpret it within an established framework; to do otherwise was to risk being branded a heretic. With the traditional Christian penchant for the gaudy and saccharine, it is likely that the standard tale was the result of a new and underground kind of oral tradition, one for the common people in which Jesus may be born in the most lowly of states (a manger), but in which even the wise and the powerful recognize his superiority and eventual triumph. In that sense, the Christmas story becomes a pseudo-proletarian version of the resurrection god myth.

Meanwhile, as Christianity spread throughout pagan Europe, it incorporated the traditions of the locals so as to win their support. Thus, the Catholic Church incorporated its pantheon of saints, which appealed to the locals’ traditions of multiple gods with specific domains of power. Christmas, likewise, expanded from its origins in the Roman Saturnalia and Sol Invictus festivals and adopted local customs such as mistletoe, stockings on the fireplace, and the Christmas tree decorated in lights.

Ah, the Christmas tree! Here we find the ultimate irony of the “war on Christmas” kerfuffle, because this is, in fact, the only Christmas tradition that the Bible does mention:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. (Jeremiah 10:2-4, emphasis mine)

Odd, isn’t it, how the Bible itself may be the biggest culprit in the “war on Christmas” of them all!

20081220

I know I never write these things even after I make an effort to do so. You want to know why? Because reading the Bible is bad enough; writing about it is even worse.

Much of the Bible seems like housekeeping, in which details are included just because they are part of the chronology. Thus, we spent entire chapters learning why some obscure mountain or cave bears a particular name, when that location will never be mentioned again. This is not just housekeeping, but pointless housekeeping – like tidying up a building that’s about to be bulldozed.

There is no moral message contained in these passages. These passages do not serve as prologue to a moral message. They are “history”, except that they are mostly a-historical, made-up fantasy.

So we come to Genesis 23, in which Sarah finally dies. The trailer-trash Sarah has exemplified some of the most immoral behavior you might ever come across, and she will not be missed. Sarah’s death is dispensed with in two verses; the remaining 18 are devoted to Abraham negotiating for the purchase of a cave in which to bury her, and a discussion of why that cave is called what it is called.

Housekeeping.

Genesis 24 picks up a bit, but not in a good way (unless you enjoy unintentional laughter). Abraham is now worried about his son Isaac not having a wife. Since this is the Bronze Age, Isaac cannot be expected to go off and find his own wife, so Abraham sends his slave out to find one for him.

You really need to read this chapter just to enjoy its repetitiveness. It tells the same story, in almost precisely the same words, three times – and almost tells it once more! In the end, the slave winds up finding Rebekah, who agrees to become Isaac’s wife.

We can finally say good riddance to the abominable Abraham in Genesis 25. I guess he won’t be pulling that “she’s my sister” bullshit on anybody else now. The chapter then proceeds to discuss the birth of Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob.

Jacob will be one of the ancestors of Judaism and later Christianity and Islam. Like his forebears, he is a shining example of how not to treat other people. His brother Esau comes to him one day dying of hunger and begs for sustenance. Jacob agrees to give it to him, but only if Esau sells him his birthright. Thus, for the price of a bowl of beans and a piece of bread, Esau’s descendants are robbed of their rightful inheritance and must become Jacob’s servants.

20081207

I’m trying to make Ponzo Reads the Bible a regular feature, and Sunday seems like the most appropriate day for it. Unfortunately, the first entry happens to concern Genesis 21, which is mostly boring as shit, so we’re going to skip much of it. The first half does deserve mention, though, because it not only introduces a major character, but reveals what kind of a person Sarah is.

Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Sarah, of course, is not only Abraham’s wife, but his sister, so we are already in weird ass territory here. Sarah is also over 90 years old at this point, so it’s even weirder. Fortunately, Sarah has been receiving fertility treatments from God: therefore, Isaac.

Of course, a 90-year-old woman giving birth is biologically dubious, but we do not question the pumpkin carriage or the ruby slippers; all fairy tales need their supernatural elements. Thus, we will take it in stride and move ahead.

Earlier we felt some sympathy for Sarah, but, if that hasn’t already evaporated, it will now. Since Sarah has her own kid now, she gets jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael. You may remember Hagar: when Sarah was still infertile, she forced her slave girl Hagar to bear Abraham a son, Ishmael. Well, now Sarah wants them out of the house, because they offend her.

I’m no fan of Abraham or God, but I am willing to cut them a break here. God promises that Hagar and Ishmael will be taken care of, and that is indeed the case. Sarah, on the other hand, couldn’t care less whether Hagar and Ishmael live or die. So fuck her.

This chapter now goes off on one of those odd Biblical non-sequiturs and discusses the origins of a well, so this is where we’ll skip ahead to Genesis 22. I was willing to cut God and Abraham some slack a moment ago, but this is the chapter that makes me want to take both of them out back and ensure that no one ever finds the bodies.

This is the part where Abraham almost murders his own son at God’s request.

God decides to “tempt” Abraham, but God is really testing his loyalty. He demands that Abraham offer Isaac as a sacrifice. What is remarkable here is that Abraham does not suffer any moral qualms about this. He does not question why God would make such a demand. He does not resist in the slightest. He merely packs up his ass (the other kind), selects his best sacrificin’ knife, and sets off to the altar.

Of course, we know that God relents at the very end, with Isaac bound on the altar and the knife in Abraham’s hand. What does this say about God, though? He demands loyalty to him over familial relationships, regardless of the damage it does. What did Isaac think about his father after this? What was their relationship like? Is this the kind of human society that God expects his followers to create: one in which no one can trust anyone else? Even worse, this passage has served as the template for subsequent Christian families rejecting their children when they didn’t turn out the way that they wanted.

In other words, these are the “family values” that fundamentalists truly have.

Any God that would demand that its servant demonstrate his loyalty by killing his own son is simply evil. And any father that would blindly and robotically follow such a command is more than a “bad father”, but a sociopath.

There is more to consider here, though, because there are two versions of this story. As we’ve discussed previously, the Pentateuch is comprised of at least four different source documents. Well, the Isaac sacrifice story appears in two of them. The one people are familiar with is the one in which God relents at the very end; this is basically the Disney version of an older, original tale. You see, in that source document, Isaac never appears again after this. In other words, originally, God let Abraham go through with the sacrifice.

There is evidence that human sacrifice was practiced by the forerunners of the Israelites. By the time the Bible was compiled, the practice had mostly shifted to animal proxies. There are still passages in the Bible that reflect the earlier practice, though; most of them were edited out, but reconstructing the source documents reveals them. This is one such example.

Genesis 22 ends with – what else? – a boring genealogy. Hopefully things will pick up next time. (Actually, they don’t.)

20081130

It’s been quite some time since my last post in the Ponzo Reads the Bible series (which is now migrating to the new blog, though you can always access the archives here). I have practical reasons for slacking off – moving halfway across the country being the chief one – but the most immediate excuse is that I got stuck on Genesis 20. I just didn’t know how to respond to it.

It is not because Genesis 20 contains some life-changing moral message that caused an epiphany in me. Rather, Genesis 20 simply continues what has quickly become the theme of the Old Testament in general: God’s chosen people do terrible things to others, with God’s full approval.

How many times can I condemn the moral degeneracy of Abraham and Sarah, or of their God for letting them get away with the shit they pull? How can I find new words to describe my disgust?

Here is the summary of Genesis 21: Abraham and Sarah travel to the land of Gerar, which is ruled by King Abimelech. Once again, they play the “Sarah is my sister” trick on Abimelech, convincing him that Sarah is free for the taking and ensuring that he will fall in lust with her (keep in mind, by the way, that Sarah is over 90 years old at this point). Once Abimelech has taken Sarah for his own, God shows up to demand the Bronze Age equivalent of protection money, threatening dire consequences if Abimelech fails to pay up.

Excuse me, but how is this not a protection racket?

This time, though, there is a twist. You see, Abimelech may have taken Sarah to be his wife, but he has refrained from even touching her in the meantime. God couldn’t care less, though; he still insists that Abimelech pay up or face the consequences. In fact, he even has the audacity to take credit for Abimelech’s own modesty.

Oh, and it gets better, because here we find out that Abraham and Sarah weren’t lying about the sister thing after all. Sarah really is Abraham’s sister; he just married her anyway!

What is all this I’ve been hearing lately about “defending ‘traditional marriage’”?

Now, all of this would be fine if it were used to convey some moral lesson – i.e., if Abraham and Sarah eventually got what was coming to them for their actions. That is not the case, though. Instead, these trailer trash degenerates engage in trickery and deceit with God’s imprimatur, and God even shows up to twist the arm of their innocent victims. Three major religions trace their origins back to Abraham as ur-patriarch, and never stop to examine or question his true nature. These religions worship the same god that is here behaving like a petty thug.

What does this say about those religions, or their adherents? What does it say about the nature of their god? The only rational conclusion is that God – Yahweh, Allah, or whatever name you choose to ascribe to this deity – is evil. The chief religious concept that the Bible supports is maltheism.

The Bible hardly needs critics, as it is its own worst enemy. If its adherents ever bothered to read it, or if they did so without succumbing to massive cognitive dissonance, they would reject it outright.

20080730

20080628

Previously, I noted how the Bible rushes past some topics, whereas it draws others out to ridiculous lengths. Entire chapters are devoted to peripheral subjects, while important sequences of events are compressed into a verse or two. Fortunately, the next two chapters are an exception. Chapters 18 and 19 do a fairly good job of setting up the story and bringing it to a conclusion. A few details are lost, but, for the most part, this section moves along fairly well.

Too bad its contents are reprehensible.

There are many Christians who attempt to argue that the Bible does not in fact condemn homosexuality. As much as I respect the motivations of these Christians, I must disagree with them: the Bible unequivocally condemns homosexuality.

However, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not a good example of this. It is vague, inconsistent, and open to considerable interpretation. The reader is left with the impression that it is not homosexuality as such that this section condemns, but gang rape. Further, given that the term “sodomy” has been used to refer not only to anal penetration, but to any “unusual” sexual activity, it would seem that at least two different interpretations arose from this tale.

Also, Lot himself provides a terrible moral exemplar.

The story begins in Chapter 18. God appears to Abraham in the form of three avatars. Abraham invites the three men into his tent to rest, and a great deal of detail is wasted on the preparations for their meal. The men repeat that Sarah will bear a child, which amuses her greatly due to her age. They then prepare to continue on their way.

The three avatars have come to judge Sodom. For a moment, God wonders if he should share his intent to destroy the city with Abraham. When he does, Abraham asks if God if he intends to destroy the righteous inhabitants of the city along with the wicked. Abraham convinces God not to destroy the city if at least fifty righteous people can be found there.

Abraham continues to argue, and convinces God not to destroy the city if forty righteous people can be found there.

Abraham continues to argue, and convinces God not to destroy the city if thirty righteous people can be found there.

Abraham continues to argue, and convinces God not to destroy the city if twenty righteous people can be found there.

Abraham continues to argue, and convinces God not to destroy the city if ten righteous people can be found there.

God, who must be getting as tired of this as I am, hurries on his way, having agreed to the ten-righteous-people promise. None of this matters anyway, though, because God doesn’t even bother to look for ten righteous people once his representatives have arrived in the city.

As Chapter 19 opens, two angels enter Sodom. This is inconsistent with the preceding chapter, which referred to three “men”. This numerical inconsistency, along with the change from “men” to “angels”, suggests that Chapters 18 and 19 were derived from different source texts. This may also explain why God conveniently forgets his ten-righteous-people promise.

Lot sees the angels and invites them to spend the night at his house with his wife and two virgin daughters. That night, the house is surrounded, and the men (or people) outside demand that Lot send the angels outside so that they might “know” them. Lot begs the crowd to reconsider, and offers his two daughters instead.

This is a troublesome passage. First of all, there is the use of the term “know”. As Religious Tolerance explains, the term is used (in its original Hebrew) 943 times in the Tanakh/Old Testament, mostly in the sense of “to know a fact”. Only on about a dozen occasions is it used as a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

As mentioned in Chapter 14, Sodom had recently been invaded by foreign armies. The people would still be on alert for more enemies. The arrival of these two strange men in the city would no doubt raise their suspicions. It has been suggested that, therefore, the crowd simply wants to interrogate the angels, and it is in that sense that the word “know” is used.

Further complicating the conventional reading, the KJV refers to “the men of the city, even the men of Sodom…both young and old, all the people from every quarter” (Genesis 19:4) The problem here is that the original Hebrew could refer either to male humans alone, or to people in the general sense (analogous to the English word “man”). It is also unlikely that “both young and old, all the people from every quarter” would not include women and children in the mix.

Regardless, Lot’s offer of his two virgin daughters in place of the two angels causes those arguments to collapse. If the mob’s intent were not sexual, then why would Lot make this offer? This still does not necessarily imply homosexuality, but, regardless, the people of Sodom would have to be extremely debauched to make this demand.

This is not a very good passage on which to base moral lessons, however, given Lot’s offer: “Please! You can rape my two young daughters if you leave these strangers alone!”

The angels ward off the mob, and reveal to Lot that they have been sent to destroy the city. In the morning, Lot, his wife, and his daughters flee the city with the angels, with Lot being oddly cantankerous during the journey. The angels warn them not to look back, but Lot’s wife cannot help herself, and, in a nicely psychedelic touch, is turned into a pillar of salt as Sodom and Gomorrah and all the plains thereabout are destroyed with fire and brimstone.

The oddly inappropriate moral lessons are not yet over, however.

Lot and his daughters escape and take up residence in a cave. It appears that Lot’s daughters believe that they are the last living people on Earth, and worry that they will never have children. Therefore, they decide to get their father drunk, and each then sleeps with him and conceives a son.

So one of our “righteous moral exemplars” offers his two virgin daughters for a mob to gang rape. Later, those two righteous daughters incestuously rape their own father.

In Chapter 12, you might have felt sympathy for poor Sarai, Abram’s wife. Abram basically prostituted her out to Pharaoh in exchange for wealth.

In Chapter 16, prepare to lose all that sympathy. The story goes like this:

Sarai, as previously mentioned, is barren. She wants a child, though, and convinces Abram to impregnate Hagar, her “maid” (i.e., slave girl). Abram does this, after which Hagar starts to “despise” her mistress (Wouldn’t you? It’s not like Hagar had a choice in the matter). Sarai asks Abram to punish her, but Abram says, basically, “She’s your slave. You punish her.” Sarai does so harshly, and Hagar flees into the desert.

Once again, we have an example of a victim being punished for being victimized.

An angel (avatar) of God appears to her and provides water. The angel commands Sarai to return to her owner, promising that her “seed” will be numerous.

So, one again, we have God approving of the victim being punished.

Hagar bears a son, whom Abram names Ishmael – just as the angel prophesied! I bet you didn’t see that coming.

Chapter 17 is about penises. (Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t write it!)

First, though, God once again repeats his promise to Abram. That’s the one in which he will give Abram’s lineage all the lands of Israel (described many times as much larger than the modern-day state). Also, that Abram’s “seed” shall be greater in number than all the sands on the beach, or all the stars in the sky. Needless to say, neither of these things ever happened.

Abram is here renamed Abraham. Sarai is renamed Sarah later in the chapter.

Now we get to the penises.

In order to commemorate this promise (which, again, God never fulfills), he commands that Abraham and all his male offspring circumcise themselves. Also, their male slaves must be circumcised. God goes into quite a lot of detail here. Infants are to be circumcised eight days after birth. Everyone else has to be circumcised immediately: Abraham himself at age 90, and Ishmael at 13. Anyone who is not circumcised will be cast out and made a pariah.

Ten of the 27 verses in this chapter are about circumcision.

One has to wonder what cutting off the foreskin of the penis has to do with God (not) giving the land of Israel to the Hebrews. Considering how it all turned out, you can’t help but wonder if this was not all part of some elaborate divine practical joke.

God also promises that Sarah will now conceive a child of her own. Furthermore, this child, Isaac, will be Abraham’s heir, despite being his second son. Ishmael won’t make out too badly in the long run (relatively, anyway), but you have to wonder if that whole Hagar thing in the preceding chapter was really necessary if God was just going to circumvent it anyway.